Media streaming is becoming an increasingly popular way of delivering television, movies and other media content to viewers. Media streams are typically point-to-point transmissions of digitized content that can be sent over the Internet or a similar network. Media streaming is often used to facilitate video on demand (VOD) services, remote storage digital video recorder (RSDVR) services, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services, placeshifted media viewing and/or any number of other convenient services. Generally, the media stream is played back for the viewer in real time as the stream continues to be delivered to the player.
Often, media content is encoded into multiple sets of “streamlets” or other smaller segment files that can be individually requested and adaptively delivered to a particular client device. As changes in network bandwidth or other factors occur, the client device is able to react to the changes by requesting future segments that are encoded with different parameters (e.g., a higher or lower bit rate). Several examples of adaptive streaming systems, devices and techniques are described in US Patent Publication No. 2008/0195743, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Adaptive media streaming typically relies upon the media player client to control much of the streaming process. It is the media player client, rather than the server, that typically determines the next segment of the stream that will be requested and delivered to the player. While this player-centric approach provides excellent adaptability to the particular conditions experienced by the player, the client is often limited in that it only has a limited amount of information that can be used to determine which segment of the adaptive stream should be next requested. If network congestion, client or server overload or other issues are occurring, the player may not be able to react in time to prevent a stall in the video playback.
It is therefore desirable to create systems, devices and methods that allow the client device to better control the adaptive streaming process to prevent stalls and other adverse effects. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.